Christmas paintings by artist Alix Aymé

(VHQN) - French female artist - Alix Aymé has created a Christmas-themed painting with Vietnamese flavor using silk and the Virgin Mary's costume is ao dai...

In the history of modern Vietnamese art, female artist Alix Aymé (1894 - 1989) is one of the few founders of Vietnamese lacquer painting, with many excellent works in terms of technique, fine art and Vietnamese concept - culture - aesthetics. She had a great influence on the painting path of master Nguyen Gia Tri (1908 - 1993).

One of the most distinctive features of Vietnamese Catholic art - let's call it that, because the concept of Catholicism is quite broad - is the spirit of Vietnamization, or bringing Vietnamese flavor into works that have become the mother model/archetype (according to Carl Jung) of the whole world .

Many of Alix Aymé's works are typical of the use of Vietnamese flavor. Her works often take traditional Vietnamese painting concepts as the center, then combine them with the Nabis style that she was influenced by.

The main technique of Nabis was to use models taken from primitive or distant civilizations to reproduce thoughts and feelings through the power of association.

Alix Aymé was a favorite student of the painter Maurice Denis (1870 - 1943), a Nabi, symbolist and neo-classicist. After a working trip with her husband appointed by the French Government to China, then traveling through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, Alix Aymé chose Vietnam to live, teach and paint for the last 20 years of her life.

Alix Aymé used to live in Laos and painted a mural of over 100 square meters for the royal family, which is now a Laotian treasure. She has painted in Cambodia, India, China, Japan, Korea, etc., but Vietnam still leaves many impressions and emotions in her career.

The picture "Christmas" has Vietnamese flavor.

Together with painter Joseph Inguimberty (1896 - 1971), she brought traditional lacquer techniques to the Indochina College of Fine Arts for research, teaching, opening a department, then a lacquer faculty. For this detail alone, Alix Aymé deserves a street name in Hanoi .

Remember, in September 2023 in Paris, the painting Nativité (Christmas, ink and color on silk, 34.5x19.5cm) by Alix Aymé was auctioned at the Asian Painters, Major Works of the Aguttes. With an estimated price of 6,000 to 8,000 EUR, the sale price was 7,249 EUR, excluding taxes and fees, which was really... "friendly".

I heard that a Vietnamese collector won the auction and the painting was repatriated. If you are interested in Western silk painting or Vietnamese style, this painting is a typical example.

Although the original theme and setting were Western, the Virgin Mary's demeanor and ao dai have many Vietnamese flavors. Many of Alix Aymé's lacquer paintings also choose Vietnamese themes, stories, landscapes, and characters to express.

And it is not only this artist. For example, when reviewing the collection of Father Dominic Tran Thai Hiep (1926 - 1992), we can clearly see this spirit of Vietnamization, through many archetypes and sacraments expressed in paintings and statues by Vietnamese authors. Some of the paintings in this collection are worthy of being masterpieces.

In 1945, Japan staged a coup against France in Vietnam, Alix Aymé’s eldest son was assassinated, and her family was imprisoned. After leaving prison and returning to France, she never returned to Vietnam again, but her longing for it was still strong.

Her numerous letters and lacquer paintings attest to this. In a letter to an old friend in 1982, at the age of 88, Alix Aymé wrote: “I continue to seek joy with lacquer, with brushes and resin. If this joy were to leave me, I would wither and die.” She died while polishing a painting, at the age of 95.

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